Our Next Environmental Crisis
Via the Onion (via Master Resource)
A coalition of geologists are challenging the way we look at global stone reserves, claiming that, unless smarter methods of preservation are developed, mankind will eventually run out of rocks.
"If we do not stop using them up at our current rate, rocks as we know them will be a thing of the past," renowned geologist Henry Kaiser said at a press conference Tuesday. "Igneous, metamorphic, even sedimentary: all of them could be gone in as little as 500,000 years."
"Think about it," Kaiser added. "When was the last time you even saw a boulder?"
The scientists warned that, although people have long considered the world's rock supply to be inexhaustible, it has not created a significant number of new rocks since the planet cooled some 3.5 billion years ago. Moreover, the earth's rocks have been very slowly depleting in the last century due to growing demand for fireplace mantels, rock gardens, gravel, and paperweights.
Kaiser claims that humanity has "wreaked havoc" on the earth's stones by picking them up, carrying them around, and displacing them from their natural habitat.
"A rock can take millions of years to form, but it only takes a second for someone to skip a smooth pebble into a lake, and then it is gone." Dr. Kaiser said. "Perhaps these thoughtless rock-skippers don't care if they leave our planet completely devoid of rocks, but what about our children? Don't they deserve the chance to hold a rock and toss it up and down a few times?"
LarryG:
the only thing I can figure here is that the guy's brain has turned to rock!
June 6, 2012, 10:49 amshotgunner:
Hello!!!
You had me until I read the source as the onion. Then I laughed and now I thoughtfully thank you for a good laugh.
June 6, 2012, 11:18 amtomw:
Isn't one of Heinleins 1st laws that: "rocks cannot be created nor destroyed. They can only change form."
RIP to Ray Bradbury.
tom
June 6, 2012, 11:50 amSam L.:
And if you take one from a Hawaiian volcano, their goddess gonna getcha!
June 6, 2012, 12:20 pmPaul:
I wonder if Global Warming helps or hurts rock production. Surely guvmint needs to fund a massive research grant to find out.
June 6, 2012, 1:06 pmCorky Boyd:
Surely you jest! But I checked the date and it isn't April 1. So it must be true.
June 6, 2012, 1:29 pmBarbara S. Meyer:
If it's true then I AM RICH. Don't tell anyone about the cache we have in WY. This will bring in more than gold or oil. Be nice to me and your kids' education will all be paid for. Love, Mom
June 6, 2012, 2:02 pmDrTorch:
Peak rock.
June 6, 2012, 3:08 pmRocky (no really its my name):
There are people gullible enough to buy into this little joke, dare I say "man made global warming" crowd to name one of many hand wringing groups of doomsayers? I guess you can make people believe just about anything if you dish out enough multi-syllable words, graphs, charts, tree ring samples, the white lab coat, yada, yada, yada and don't forget a PhD in charisma to get them to chant your mantra.
June 6, 2012, 3:14 pmSmock Puppet, DHMO Prophet of Doom:
This should be treated as a serious problem, with all the same urgency as the equally pervasive problem of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) (also HERE: Dihydrogen Monoxide - The Truth)
Dihydrogen Monoxide Facts
============================================================================
Dihydrogen monoxide:
o is also known as hydric acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
o contributes to the Greenhouse Effect.
o may cause severe burns.
o contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
o accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
o may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
o has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
Much more can be found at the above two links regarding this tremendous danger. In one recent case, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced when mass amounts of DHMO were found throughout their region and the surrounding area. Mechanical failures in a wide array of equipment created even greater dangers to all who lived there. All had to be evacuated and many lost their lives as a result of the presence of this DEADLY CHEMICAL.
June 6, 2012, 3:44 pmSmock Puppet, DHMO Prophet of Doom:
>>> Peak rock.
No, Doc, we're well past peak rock. A lot of that original rock has been turned to dirt and dust by needless man-made destruction of this precious and finite natural resource.
I recommend that it's time someone created the Rock Sustainability Project, to promote public awareness of this ever-dwindling natural resource.
June 6, 2012, 3:47 pmSmock Puppet, DHMO Prophet of Doom:
Rocky: DHMO is a much better petard, as it's really, really not obvious to the lay-idiot who thinks an electron is about the size of a pea.
June 6, 2012, 3:49 pmdrB:
Sock Puppet -
how could you spread the lies of coalition to ban DHMO!!!
Please see http://www.armory.com/~crisper/DHMO/
Hydrogen hydroxide is beneficial!
It has been shown that hydrogen hydroxide enhances the functionality, growth, and health of many forms of life-- including humans!-- and current research suggests that it has become an integral part of our planet's ecological balance.
Hydrogen hydroxide is environmentally safe!
Opponents of dihydrogen monoxide would have you believe that it is some kind of uber-toxin, that it wreaks caustic terror on anything it touches. This couldn't be farther from the truth; when handled properly, it enhances nature rather than destroys it, and even a worst-case scenario DHMO accident would be a trifle for the natural cycles of our world to handle.
Hydrogen hydroxide is benign!
The Coalition and others have popularized the label "dihydrogen monoxide" over the more chemically-accurate "hydrogen hydroxide" because they know how loaded the former name is. "Monoxide" has become synonymous with pollution, toxic gases, industrial waste-- and while hydrogen hydroxide is sometimes a factor in these problems facing our world today, it is rarely the dangerous element.
We need hydrogen hydroxide!
Don't let an uneducated and terror-stricken mob of fanatics railroad you into giving up your right to choose!
Support the use and distribution of hydrogen hydroxide in your neighborhood, city, state, and country!
June 6, 2012, 4:19 pmblokeinfrance:
I plead guilty. If I continue to breathe air for another 3 billion years I will have used most of it up.
June 6, 2012, 4:34 pmbeautox:
Talking of DHMO, I find the rocks-running-out theory no more silly than the DHMO-running-out stories you see at non-Onion sites. Like this for example
June 6, 2012, 6:25 pmhttp://www.care2.com/causes/world-water-crisis-101-part-1-quantity-and-quality.html
Gil:
Gee, beautox, as you as you can get access to clean drinking water then everyone must be able to access to clean drinking water, right?
June 7, 2012, 12:23 amJohn:
OMG, we've hit Peak Rock! Quick, I need a $1b grant to study the problem.
June 7, 2012, 9:15 amDenise C:
My husband is a licensed geologist and I was already to call him over to read this article (knowing that doing so would launch him into a tirade about how "The public just doesn't understand geology") until … well, until I got to the second paragraph. Then it hit me.
Now I really can't wait to show them this article!
June 7, 2012, 12:08 pmJB:
Linus: Nice going, Charlie Brown. It took that rock 4000 years to get to shore, and now you've thrown it back.
Charlie Brown: Everything I do makes me feel guilty.
June 7, 2012, 2:58 pmSmock Puppet, DHMO Prophet of Doom:
Ignore drB, he's a paid shill for Aquafina and Dasani.
June 7, 2012, 11:56 pmSmock Puppet, DHMO Prophet of Doom:
... and don't even ASK about his connections with Evian and Perrier.
June 7, 2012, 11:58 pmJoseph Hertzlinger:
I thought the same thing ... when I was eight, right after I learned that rocks took millions of years to form.
June 9, 2012, 7:45 pmW. C. Taqiyya:
I hope you realize I will be suffering from nightmares because of this post. Although I realized that the local quarry was gradually running low on mountain and gaining hole, I had no idea the problem was world wide. What are we gonna do without rocks!? :(
June 14, 2012, 3:32 pm